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Laurence & Gus: Next In Line

This year's show marks a departure from the longer sketches
of the last two. Next in Line takes the form of a single, continuous
story told by a relay of characters. Each sketch features one
character from the previous sketch and one that continues to
the nextp. Laurence and Gus play all the parts.

Taken as a whole, Next in Line is a complete mesh of ambitious,
frustrated and fearful people trying to find their way out of
the anterooms of life.

Comedians

Reviews

Original Review:

Laurence and Gus made a Fringe name for themselves with the
long-form sketch, extended routines in which they explored every
comic angle of their set-up and personality trait of their complex
characters. But they didn't half go on a bit.

This time around they've got for a more quickfire approaches,
with dozens of shorter episodes. The gimmick, though, is that
one flows on from the last, like a comedy relay race. So the
director from the 'bad audition' sketch that opens the show is
seen in the second playing poker with a recently-divorced friend,
who in turns goes on to discuss his relationship difficulties
with his dry cleaner in sketch three, and so the baton is passed
on and on.

It's rather a stagey contrivance, more like a dramatic writing
exercise than the basis for a real show, but it does ensure the
proceedings flow fluidly, with no (or at lest very few) awkward
transitions.

The duo are seasoned enough to realise the limitations of
the form, however, and things start to get interesting when they
start subverting their own rules, with Gus Brown, for instance,
reappearing as a character Lawrence Howarth earlier played. Eventually
the whole concept comes brilliantly unravelled although they
ill-advisedly then try to pick it back up again. After such a
thorough trashing of the conceit, it's hard to go back to believing
the pretence of the formal sketch.

Much of the comedy is of the sort you admire, rather than
laugh heartily at ­ a sort of stage equivalent of Steve Coogan's
Saxondale. The writing is mature, with three-dimensional characters
uttering authentic lines, from which wry comedy emerges naturally.
The crux is normally people who aren't quite what they seem,
such as the sergeant-major racked by insecurity or the thrusting,
boastful executive who's actually been made redundant.

Other creations are weirder ­ the mental projection of
a dead teenager, or Knorman Knopfler, Mark's offspring struggling
to find his own niche ­ yet still seem reasonably convincing
because the duo are such fine performers. Guy is generally the
more mature, authoritative type, while the jowlier, jauntier
Laurence more prone to playing up, but they are both talented
actors, so it's not as simple as the traditional double-act mechanic.

Nothing, in fact, is simple here ­ which is perhaps why
it's not the source of many belly laughs. But there's still plenty
to enjoy in the rich writing if you're prepared to accept it
on those terms.